Editorial: Public-private partnerships may help bridge the skills gap

Wednesday

Oct 23, 2013 at 2:43 PMOct 23, 2013 at 4:46 PM

The “skills gap” – the divide between the skills employers want to find in a ready workforce and the know-how that unemployed workers have to offer from previous jobs and education – is garnering increased attention across the country, as employment continues to lag and the economy recovers more sluggishly than expected. President Barack Obama has pressed for an $8 billion increase in funding for job training programs to help combat the problem.

Whether there is, in fact, a skills gap is a matter of debate. Some experts say there is a gap in the workforce – a fact brought to light the Great Recession when it changed the makeup of not only the job market, but the face of the unemployment line. Unemployed workers are older and better educated than those from past economic upheaval. Experience and education aren’t necessarily the advantages they once were for workers.

National surveys and individual employers say good jobs are available, but sufficient numbers of qualified workers are not.

Critics, meanwhile, say the idea of a skills gap is rubbish. They say it is nothing more than an excuse for employers to postpone hiring, hold down wages and appeal to sympathetic taxpayers to foot the bill for job training.

No matter how you slice it, unemployment remains a problem in the United States in general. Job growth from the recession has not met expectations, and more people are staying on unemployment for longer periods of time than ever before. Jobs disappear, evolve or move, sometimes overseas, leaving workers at a loss for how to cope.

And in the category of self-fulfilling prophecy, many employers are hesitant to hire workers who are unemployed, regardless of their qualifications, locking those people in a cycle of unemployment and preventing them and their families from contributing to the economy.

Investment in job retraining, by both the public and private sector, is critical to the country overcoming the recession and putting people back to work.

It’s already happening, as reporter Tim Landis reported in a special series on the skills gap. Spoon River Community College in Canton, Ill., for example, offers diesel-mechanic students a certification to work on train engines in just two semesters. It started through a partnership with Carl Sandburg Community College in Galesburg, Ill., and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railroad. The railroad donated engines and special tools to the program, which helped the college offset about half the $300,000 to $400,000 start-up cost of the program.

It is an admirable example of a public-private partnership to address a specific need in the workforce. Providing a certification in such a short period of time makes the program attractive for students eager to start earning a paycheck, and the contributions by the rail company ensure a pool of potential employees with exactly the kind of skills it requires.

Allowing people to languish on the unemployment line indefinitely is not an option. Investing in job training – and finding innovative ways to do so – is a must for America’s rapidly evolving, globally focused workplace.

Workers must be able to acquire the specific “hard skills” employers want – such as understanding how to work on an engine or how to code medical procedures. They also need to acquire the important “soft skills” such as showing up to work on time, dressing appropriately and knowing how to write an email free of typos.